


the moments that never happened

by brokenlittleboy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Unrequited Wincest, s10 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:59:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2062011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenlittleboy/pseuds/brokenlittleboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in Dean's room and grieving, Sam recalls his life with Dean. The conversations they had. The moments they shared. Most of all, he finds himself thinking of the life they didn't have-- the words he was never strong enough to say. His mind wanders to dark places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the moments that never happened

It’s been two weeks.

Two weeks since he summoned Crowley, a headache inching ever closer to a migraine throbbing right between his eyes— a dull, low pain that harmonizes with the ringing in his ears.

He is bunched up; coiled, like a spring, and ready to fight anyone or anything, preparing for the worst, a seasoned pessimist by experience alone, and he waits. He is willing to drink anyone’s blood. He is willing to go anywhere. There is no place he hasn’t been, no place he is not used to, not willing to bear.

His initial deal was his soul, immediately. No extra, unnecessary years. He’d considered offering indentured servitude to Crowley— he’s a seasoned hunter, and there is nothing Crowley can do to him that has not already been done. Somehow, he had doubted Crowley would accept even that bargain, that deal that would make any other demon salivate.

He had been right. Crowley had laughed, had said something about the Mark that Sam couldn’t remember. He’d refused Sam outright, said even if Sam owned God he couldn’t do it. He’d told Sam to let him out or there would be obvious consequences. Sam almost let him rot, would’ve greeted hellhounds or anything else with open arms. He broke the devil’s trap and watched the devil disappear.

Sam stands in Dean’s room. It has been two weeks since he walked back to find the bed empty and cold. For a week and a half he searched and researched, always finding nothing. He strains to remember Crowley’s warning about the Mark. With the help of Mr. Jack Daniels, he imagines an explanation for Dean’s disappearance. There is no way to get him back. He is gone, and this time it is actually permanent. The word sits oddly in Sam’s head.

Sam gives up. He stares at the bed. His eyes drift away from the sheets, blood stain already dutifully removed, to the picture of Dean and his mom on the desk. Dean and Mary are smiling. They had been happy. For the millionth time he ponders Dean’s existence if his little brother had never been born and had never developed into a tall, lanky obligation.

This only spurs his heart to jump and skip and beat faster, his hands to wind and wring and fiddle uselessly. He wishes there was another king of hell, another god, to sell his soul to. The rejection, he can deal with. The torture as well. But sitting here, not so much a sitting duck as a sitting duck gift-wrapped, is something that makes him feel more caged than he already is.

He is desperate, to say the least. Hell, at this point, he is willing to be possessed again. To be a toy, a doll, a plaything for a higher being with a penchant for using him like a marionette, the man behind the curtain raising the strings and he cannot protest as his hand rises up, cannot say anything as it rips the heart out of someone innocent.

He swallows. His mouth is dry. He left the gin and tonic in the library and stoically refuses to leave Dean’s bedside. His mind circles in a fruitless pattern. First he roves over options, options that have already failed him and exhausted him of hope. Then he thinks of Dean, but it’s as if his heart cannot bear the brunt of the weight— he goes into full-blown denial and refuses to think of his brother. It hurts too much, only peels up scabs that never seem to heal. For a moment he is okay, but only because he’s empty and is putting up a blockade between his thoughts and his emotions. He hates that his head has never stopped being a battlefield, either literally or metaphorically, for all these years.

He sits down, dropping and almost collapsing onto the floor beside Dean’s bed. He leans his back against it and folds his knees up, keeping them close and wrapping them in his arms. He doesn’t look behind him because he knows nothing is there.

He closes his eyes and breathes in, out. He orders himself to calm down, chastises himself for being so blinded by this even though there is no other way. Not for him and Dean. He tilts his head back against the mattress and sighs.

Before he can stop himself, he begins to remember.

4/17/2013

They are in a bar. For the first time in ages, it’s not to flash federal badges and ask for info, and it’s not to grill someone about a recent death or disappearance.

It’s just for kicks.

The music is something low and melodic, something Dean wouldn’t like. Sam vaguely recognizes it as some alternative band he used to like, used to swat Dean’s hand away when he groaned and went to change the station.

It sets a sort of reflective mood for him, and he smiles softly, moving to cover it up by taking another swig of his beer. The place is packed and dark and loud, and there are plenty of beautiful girls here, but Dean is looking at him from across the table.

“You okay?” he asks, and Sam’s ears are now used to that phrase. Ever since the trials and his slow and steady degradation, they have been the first words out of Dean’s mouth whenever they do or go anywhere. When Sam wakes up, they’re more of an alarm clock than the tinny sound of his cellphone at 7 A.M. is.

Sam smiles openly, exasperatedly, hoping his eye roll was not missed in the gloom of the bar. “Can’t we enjoy this?” he pleads, “just this once?”

Dean scoffs and glares at Sam, poking fun, but Sam can see the concern still radiating behind Dean’s glance. He wishes it would go away. He nods discreetly at Dean, and smiles, lips tight. Dean nods back and visibly relaxes.

The song changes, but Sam is too busy to notice.

The waitress interrupts their moment, swaying over and balancing a tray on one of her hands. She dips down and sets the burger on the table in front of Dean. She picks up Sam’s salad and smiles, sliding it in front of him. “Enjoy your meal, hun,” she calls and turns away, walking away slowly and purposefully.

Dean’s eyes go to her and then downward and Sam shakes his head, taking a bite of his meal.

“Dude,” Dean says urgently, and Sam looks up, “she’s totally into you.”

Sam has trouble swallowing. He quirks an eyebrow. “What?” he coughs.

Dean reaches across their table and playfully shoves Sam by the shoulder. “Your old age is making you blind,” he jokes.

Sam shakes his head. Something stirs inside him and he gulps down the rest of his beer, slamming it down on the table. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.

“Liquid courage, huh?” Dean nods briskly. “I understand.” He looks over Sam’s shoulder and raises a hand to The waitress, grinning obnoxiously.

Sam feels a flare of anger underneath the dull buzz he’s given himself. “What? No, Dean’s that’s not it.”

Before he can continue, she’s back, and Dean orders a shot of whisky for Sam and another beer for himself. “Feeling bold, huh?” she laughs, smiling down at him. Sam grimaces back at her, but she doesn’t notice and twirls away.

Sam perks up as he recognizes the song. “Oh, dude!” he exclaims, “it’s  _Troubleman_.”

“Yeah… I knew the music here was crap,” Dean acknowledges, grinning maliciously at Sam before taking a sip of his beer.

“You’re an ass,” Sam drawls, and smiles at the waitress- Em, her nametag says- before accepting his shot glass. Briefly he acquiesces that she is attractive. Blonde. For some reason, the thought simultaneously unsettles him and makes him feel lighter, and he wastes no time in downing his shot. He winces as the bitter liquid burns down his throat, and he can hear Dean laughing at him. He waits for the alcohol to kick in.

“You really think she does?” Sam asks, and Dean knows exactly what he means.

“Hell yeah!” Dean exclaims. He winks and makes a small growling noise. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

At this point, Sam is sufficiently drunk. Like shards of glass from a broken window, all his cares and worries seem to fall away as his mind clouds, and he’s extremely grateful Dean suggested they come here. She’s another distraction. She’s another excuse that looks like Jessica.

“Say what you will, but the song is fitting,” Sam slurs, pointing at the ceiling. “‘ _She’s got it bad for me, she’s got it baaad for me_ ’,” he sings along, very shittily.

Dean laughs outright, his head thrown back. Another first. Sam is pleased. “My god, you are drunk,” Dean tells him, eyes still crinkling as he smiles at his brother.

Something warm that isn’t alcohol stirs in Sam’s stomach as he watches Dean. Maybe for Dean, he should go after her. The alcohol pushes his reservations away along with his balance as he stumbles and stands up. He mouths along with the lyrics and backs toward the bar where Em is stationed. Dean rolls his eyes but gives a thumbs up and Sam turns, bumbling about until he reaches the counter and leans against it. He looks back and Dean is watching him.

His cheeks burn as he turns forward. Em is serving someone else right now, but she’s noticed him. He has some time to kill, a commercial break.

He thinks of how Dean is with girls. He thinks of how Dean’s idea was probably that getting ol’ Sammy hooked up with a girl would make his little brother happier. He thinks about Jess. He thinks about how he loved her. And how he didn’t. He thinks about her asking about Dean, digging deeper, getting dangerously close to something hidden and dark that he tried to keep locked up, like a cursed object.

He thinks about this girl right here, bending over to pick something up. Not a single part of him reacts. He thinks about Dean. He thinks about what Dean wants. He thinks about what he wants. He wishes he had another shot of whisky, but he doesn’t want to ask Em for it.

The song he loves has passed the bridge and it’s the chorus again, but slower and layered and the lyrics have changed. He hadn’t really noticed it last time he listened.

_He’s gotten bad for me, he’s gotten baaad for me._

Sam feels bitter. He feels too small, too hot, too angry. It’s as if someone has poured him into a shotglass and he can’t get out. Something’s going to swallow him down.

Just as Em sashays over he turns away. He walks back to his and Dean’s table without stumbling, grabs his coat from his chair.

Dean bird whistles. “You headin’ out with, uh, Em, over there?” he asks, and even though Sam cannot look at him, he can hear the smile and the implication in Dean’s tone. He hates it.

“No. I’m going back to the motel,” he tries to say lightly, tries to smile, but knows his tone was too clipped and knows it was all not worth the effort, that Dean instantly read how he was feeling.

Dean frowns and sits up straight. He looks over Sam almost clinically. “You drink too much?”

Sam wants to laugh. He shakes his head. “No. It’s fine, Dean. You stay as long as you want.”

Dean holds up his keys and shakes them. “You want the car?”

Sam shakes his head and quirks a small smile. “No thanks. It’s just a couple blocks.”

Before Dean can respond again, Sam shrugs on his coat and practically jogs past him, brushing past countless people dressed in countless ways before he’s back out in the open. He huffs a breath in relief and watches it ghost out ahead of him like exhaust fumes. He shakes his head like a dog, rolls his shoulders. He starts heading the way back home with his hands crammed deep into his pockets.

He hears someone walking behind him and stiffens before he can stop himself.

“You seemed pretty into her, dude, what happened?”

Sam relaxes, only marginally. “Dean, it’s nothing. Go back inside.”

“Don’t want to,” Dean throws back casually. “My drinking partner’s feeling shitty.”

Something about that sentence sticks with Sam and won’t be shaken off. He allows Dean to match his pace, eyes staring at the ground and watching their legs move in perfect synchrony. Dean doesn’t speak up again for the rest of the walk, and Sam’s grateful for a reason he can’t place— he feels like gasoline, overflowing, and some poor bastard keeps flicking a lighter.

Dean skips a little to reach the motel door first and digs out the key, opening the door and holding it for Sam. He doesn’t make a snarky comment as Sam nods at him and steps inside. Dean follows behind him, and the door shuts softly with a click. The silence follows Sam to the bed and he sits down heavily at the foot of it, the old springs bending dangerously low underneath him.

He can feel Dean’s eyes watching him and knows Dean will break the silence to interrogate him. He wants to come up with a feasible excuse, one of thousands from his past, but is too drunk and can’t get himself to care.

Dean blows air out of his mouth, grabs one of the chairs from the little kitchenette table and drags it over to Sam. He plops down into it, leaning forward with his hands clasps together. Sam stares at them.

“So, are we gonna talk about this?” Dean asks, trying not to sound too world-weary. Sam wishes he didn’t know his brother so well.

“Do we have to?” Sam returns.

“Because you said that, yes,” Dean tells him, and sits up straighter. “Dude, you’re really starting to freak me out.” Dean scooches the chair closer, and now their knees are almost touching.

Sam doesn’t respond. He wishes the silence could cover him like a cloak and hide him from Dean. Something about the bar and the girl and Dean has jarred something inside him, and the last thing he wants to do is talk about it.

“Is this about Jessica?”

Sam cannot stop himself from laughing out loud. Dean is so close, but so fucking far from the truth. If Dean presses his wounds any further, they’re going to bleed.

Dean is quick to rile. “Something funny, Sam? I’m trying to help you out.”

"I’m sorry,” Sam apologizes immediately. “But it’s- no. No, it isn’t about Jessica. Even with her, we never really— no. I’m sorry. I’m just drunk. Let me get some rest or something. I’ll be fine in the morning,”

 _Besides rotting from the inside out before the third trial,_  he mentally adds, his lips curling back in disgust for a split second.

Dean taps his foot a few times, stops. “What is it about, Sammy?” His voice is soft, and he’s leaning in again, trying to look into Sam’s eyes as if it’ll help him look into Sam’s soul, and Sam can feel Dean’s breath on his lips, and this is ridiculous, all of this is so ridiculous.

He stands, to get away from this, to get a breath of fresh air, and walks to the door. He freezes there, hands clenching into fists and unclenching, over and over again. He turns and looks at Dean, who is now standing too, wavering and unsure.

 _It’s about you,_  Sam wants to cry, wants to shake his brother by the shoulders until he understands, wants to press their lips together and not feel the guilt or the disgust or the fear anymore.  _It’s always been about you._

“I can’t believe I’ve been able to shove this down for so fucking long,” Sam accidentally says out loud. When he realizes, he laughs. He craves another shot of whiskey, the feeling of the shot glass in his hand. But he’s not leaving Dean, not right now.

And then, Sam decides one of the fates must have some sick fucking sense of humor or something, because he thinks  _Dean gets it._  He sees the understanding in his eyes. Dean keeps staring at him, and the moment is lasting too long, because  _for fuck’s sake Dean I have to breathe please say something,_  and then Dean shakes his head and smiles.

“I could barely understand what you just said, kiddo. Maybe it is time for you to hit the hay.”

Sam’s stomach plummets.

Between the time Dean grabs him gently by the shoulder and herds him gently back onto his bed, Sam cannot decide whether Dean honestly couldn’t hear him or Dean knew and didn’t want to talk about it, wouldn’t ever want to talk about it, because it’s  _wrong_  and  _sick_ and  _Sammy, you need help._

Sam vomits over the side of his bed and Dean forgives him, muttering something about lightweight little brothers.

Sam decides not to correct him.

Sam spends the entire night awake, staring at Dean’s back outlined in moonlight and systematically locking himself back up and destroying the keys. He accuses himself. He chastises himself.

He makes himself forget.

When he wakes up, all he has is a hangover and Dean rubbing his back as he pukes in the toilet. Something feels too familiar about all this.

—

_Now_

Sam thumps his head against the mattress behind him just to feel something besides his pounding headache. It doesn’t do much good, obviously, but he feels useless when he ends up dwelling like this, missing Dean and regretting every moment of his entire fucking life.

So he stills his head, keeps thinking, keeps feeling useless, because at least there’s some part of Dean with him when he does.

—

5/12/10

It’s the night before the heavyweight match; the boss fight. Dean finds them a motel right outside of Detroit. Sam had been the one who suggested they stop for the night, even though it was early— Dean was completely on board with the idea and pulled off at the first exit they found after calling Bobby and explaining the situation. He understands enough, leaves well enough alone, and keeps driving.

It’s just them.

Dean gets them a room and tosses Sam the key. He also bats away Sams protestations when he goes around to the trunk to bring in his bags— Dean’s taking care of it. Sam flubs a little and steps back, scratching his head, but he completely understands. He knows what Dean is doing, what Dean is trying to do for him, in those little ways that say more than his lips ever had.

Sam belatedly realizes he is musing about Dean in the past tense.

His throat feels like there’s a boa constrictor around it and he’s been watery-eyed nonstop for around three days now. He leaves Dean to the bags and enters the room, stepping softly, carefully, as if there is a tightrope that he is treading. It’s sort of true, he thinks as he sits on one of the beds. He looks over the room. It is nothing special. Old, forest-themed. Somewhere they’ve been millions of times. He tries to memorize it anyway, attempts to consider it his last home. He fails. He’s staring at a spot on the ceiling when Dean finally comes in with all the bags, kicking the door closed behind him.

“Your palace, your majesty,” Dean pants, dropping everything unceremoniously in the middle of the room and swooping even lower to make it a bow.

Sam smiles before he can stop himself and scoffs. Dean grins but it flickers off too soon.

There is not just an elephant in the room, there is the biggest elephant known to man, crashing into things and stomping thoughts to bits. It crams itself between them until Sam can’t think about anything else.

He puffs out a burst of air and rubs his hands. He looks down, then over at Dean, then up at his face. His lips pull up in a brief, sympathetic smile. “Dean…” he tries, and swallows down the lump in his throat. He opens his mouth to try again. Dean holds up a hand.

“Sam,” he allows patiently, “I know, god, I know, but please— not tonight.”

“What then?” Sam croaks. “We just pretend everything is alright?”

Dean beams at him and reaches for the remote on the nightstand. “Exactly,” he says distractedly, flipping to some old film on the TV that looks older than their car, the picture buzzing and wavering and the audio fizzing out. “Tonight, we veg out, don’t worry about the hunt tomorrow, and order in some pizza. Sound nice?”

Sam doesn’t answer. He looks away.

Dean is in denial. That much is obvious. Sam is too tired to join him.

The movie goes on for around thirty minutes, broken up with loud, obnoxious commercials, while Sam stews. He doesn’t watch it. He doesn’t listen to it. He’s staring at Dean, who is now munching on an atrociously greasy piece of pizza without flinching when it drips onto his collarbone.

He can hear the clock ticking- literally, god damn it- and it’s tearing him apart. He’s looking at his brother and he can’t stop looking because he knows if he does, Dean will be gone. Again. And Sam will be somewhere indescribable, for eternity, with the fucking devil himself and it’s all gone so grand-scale that his brain refuses to think about it any further, refuses to empathize with himself and what he will have to endure.

“Stop,” Sam chokes out, blinking away the tears, the words spilling out without his permission.

Dean jumps. He drops his pizza onto his chest and looks over at Sam, concern bleeding out over his face. He makes a noise of confusion while he chews and swallows. Sam gets up, strides quickly over to the clock, takes his gun out of his waistband, and shoots it.

There’s a single beat of silence. “We can’t really afford to have the cops called on us,” Dean points out calmly, and his voice is right at Sam’s ear— he’s gotten up off the bed.

“In this part of town, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that,” Sam gasps, lungs exerting for no fucking reason and his chest is heaving and he’s sweating and he’s shaking and he can’t stop staring at the clock, stopped at the eleventh hour and shattered into meaningless little bits. It feels too symbolic. He wants to puke. His thoughts run in morbid, decrepit circles and Dean’s saying something, low and quick and urgent and there’s a hand on his shoulder, kneading into it, trying to calm him down. He feels Dean’s hands peel his fingers away from the trigger, setting the gun down somewhere.

Sam closes his eyes and breathes out slowly, willing himself to calm the fuck down. It works, a little bit, and he backs up, bumping Dean out of his way, to sit on the foot of his bed. He puts his head in his hands.

“I wish we could stop,” he confesses quietly, voice muffled by his hands, but Dean does not miss a word.

The bed dips when Dean sits down next to him and Sam smells pizza. Dean’s arm is brushing up against his and Dean’s leg is pressed tightly against his, as if closing the distance between them is amending something. It’s a little too late for that.

“We could,” Dean tells him excitedly, and the words tumble out of him after being locked up for so long. “we could just stop. Go find a place for ourselves. A panic room, right? Hell, I’ll let you get a dog. I can get a job and we can sit around all day until we become fat and old and die together in our sleep.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He picks his head back up and smoothes his palms out over his jeans.

Sam doesn’t mean to chastise, doesn’t mean to sound like a hopeless pessimist, but that cat’s long out of it’s bag. “And you know we can’t. Lucifer would just find another vessel. I just wish… everything would stop. Just for a little while. So I could be stopped here with you, before…” his voice tapers off weakly, his throat too tight and his eyes too red and he makes a pathetic sound before swallowing and sniffling.

“I know,” Dean whispers, slinging an arm around Sam and dragging him closer, making as many parts of them touch as he can. “I know, kiddo.”

And then that is simply too much.

Sam caves, turning to face Dean and wrapping his arms around him and shoving his nose into the crook of Dean’s neck, squeezing his eyes shut tight and breathing in the scent of him, the warmth of him and the feel of him. He dimly processes that he’s sobbing his fucking brains out, shaking like a lunatic and probably preventing Dean from breathing because he’s lassoed around the guy so tightly.

Dean doesn’t say anything, doesn’t complain, just shifts a little and puts his arms around Sam gently, rubbing little circles in his back and craning his neck so his chin rests on the crown of Sam’s head.

This hasn’t happened with them- between them- in years. It has been so long since Sam has felt free enough to let go. One domino fell after another and they kept getting closer and closer to being strangers, all the trademark touches and jokes and special phrases disappearing. They had staled. Sam kept a pokerface on around Dean whenever he could, and knew Dean was doing likewise. The guilt ate him away gradually until the person he had been before all of this had happened became an ancient artifact.

It was only now that Sam realized letting the self-hate push the only person he ever really loved was probably the stupidest fucking mistake he ever made, including letting Lucifer out of his cage and trusting Ruby.

Sam uncurls himself from Dean and looks him in the eye. They’re both red-faced with old tear tracks going down their cheeks like war paint and worn down as hell. “Can we fix us before tomorrow?” Sam asks, almost begging.

Dean’s face splits into a small smile. “‘Course we can,” he murmurs back, and now one of his hands is threading through Sam’s hair. “And I just want you to know that I forgave you a long time ago. For anything you think you’ve done. I wish we coulda started fixing everything else earlier, I wish we hadn’t been so damn bullheaded.”

Sam smiles back at him. He can’t help it. “Me too,” he returns, his voice too high and thready. He practically falls into Dean, leaning into his touch and letting Dean’s hands wander, making up for lost time.

Dean’s arms snake away and Sam feels the loss deeply until they came back, hooking under his arms and drawing him back. Dean leads Sam over to his bed, throwing the pizza box into a corner and half-assedly dusting off crumbs. Dean lets go of Sam for a split second to hop onto the bed and Sam follows, crawling over to him and ducking under the covers. Dean’s arm loops back around Sam’s shoulders and draws him close.

“We’ve never talked about it,” Sam says, his lips almost pressed into Dean’s skin. “I want to talk about it.”

“You wanna kill me, too?” Dean pleads softly, and his voice cracks.

Sam flinches. “I want to talk about it,” he repeats louder, sterner. He looks up and meets eyes with Dean. He’s trying for serious, but he knows his nose is running and his lips are betraying him, wobbling furiously. Dean looks away first. He lowers the volume on the TV, sags a little lower down, a little closer to Sam. He swallows. Sam watches his chin, watches his throat move.

“I don’t think either of us have really thought about what you’re going to go through.”

“I know.”

“It’s not just a paid vacation, Sam. It’s not forty years like I had. It’s not a thousand. This is…” he can’t finish. He’s frozen, as if turning into a statue will make Sam forget the conversation.

Sam sits up and leans his head on Dean’s shoulder. Dean jumps slightly when Sam’s fingers tangle with his own, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, he squeezes Sam’s hand a little. “I know,” Sam says to him, letting Dean lead the conversation.

“And… And Sammy, it’s not just demon class 101 with Mr. Azazel. They’re going to be mad, in their own element, and their going to take all of it out on you. I can’t even imagine it. I mean, maybe it won’t be forever because your fucking soul will disintegrate into nothing before then.”

Dean probably doesn’t even realizing he’s doing it, but he chucks the remote across the room, his free hand restlessly bunching into fists.

"I know.” Sam swallows. He nods. “But we both know that I’m the only one who can actually do this. And I’ve already asked you not to bring me back. This is world-ending, and I might be able to save it. I have to try.”

“You said  _might_ ,” Dean’s voice claws out, so tight and small and packed with emotion it sounds like he might implode. “We’re not certain, we’re not solid, and you’re asking me to let you go. To never see you again, except as a shitty fucking shade of yourself in memories when I inevitably kill myself. God, Sammy, I’ve been wanting to hold you my entire life and you’re asking me to never touch you again.”

Sam doesn’t realize he’s cutting off the circulation in Dean’s hand until he releases him. He wants to laugh about where his life has gone, from Jess and lawyers and jello shots on the weekend to this. He wants to cry. He wants to take Dean to a cabin and never fucking let go. He wants to tell Dean everything. Everything he feels for his brother. Instead, he folds his hands in his lap and looks away. “I know.”

The calloused pads of Dean’s fingers find his chin and hook there, gently bringing Sam’s face around to see eye to eye with Dean. Dean’s face is less than an inch from his, and scrunched up and red and watery with grief, but he’s there. He’s there for Sam.

Dean doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Sam can’t tell exactly how long because he fucking shot the clock, but it stretches on and on, until Sam thinks his wish for things to stop might’ve come true.

Then Dean blinks, and a tear falls, and his face crumples even more until he’s moaning Sam’s name and choking on breaths and almost strangling his brother, holding Sam in a cage of warm skin so closely Sam can feel Dean’s heartbeat stuttering about in his chest.

It feels like role reversal; something happened in that last minute and Sam is calmer than ever. His breath doesn’t hitch, his heart doesn’t miss a beat as he goes limp in Dean’s arms, letting Dean finally let it all out. He doesn’t say anything.

As if god is really up to cosmic jokes and shitting on Sam’s luck specifically, the rest of the night happens as a panicked blur, something Sam doesn’t even quite remember the next morning.

One moment Dean is shaking, holding Sam, and the next he is gone, unwrapped from Sam so fast it leaves his head spinning. He’s sitting up on the bed, still staring at Sam intensely, and then just as fast he is straddling Sam, holding Sam’s hands between them and furiously, desperately pressing his lips to Sam’s. It’s like Dean thinks it might keep him there. Keep him from leaving.

The kiss is shitty, and dry, and angry. It’s fast and closed-mouth and Sam is so fucking shocked at this turn of events that he doesn’t react, only freezes, and then Dean’s gone, his head dropping and falling away. Dean’s still sitting on top of him, breathing hard. Sam swallows.

“Dean.”

Dean looks down at him and Sam learned about cliches in eighth grade, but damn. He’s lost in Dean’s eyes, the mossy pools or whatever. For a second he thinks that he could get off on how broken they look.

A second later Dean shuts down. His eyes go from broken to horrified to completely empty, a chilling lackluster Sam has never seen.

It’s an odd moment— Dean doesn’t get off his lap, Sam doesn’t close his mouth. They keep staring each other down, each looking for something the other can’t identify.

Dean’s throat works. Sam watches it. “I’m sorry,” Dean croaks, his voice empty save for the slight wobble. He moves and Sam can’t find the words to bring him back. A lifetime of containing feelings has left him in the dark on how to approach this.

“I just.” Dean looks away. “I thought I could keep you closer like that. It was stupid. It won’t happen again.” He’s adopted the tone he uses when he used to apologize to Dad for one thing or another, and Sam is breaking even more for it.

Dean rolls to sit down next to Sam, and their legs are still touching and warm.

Sam opens his mouth and closes it. “We could try again,” he finally manages.

Dean looks over at him, and there’s something in his eyes, something dark and possessive, but it goes away in a second. Sam’s shaking again, his heart rattling at a mile per minute, and he leans over to kiss Dean. Dean hardly responds, doesn’t open his mouth, and keeps his eyes open. Sam pulls away too soon, frowning.

“No. I’m sorry. I can’t do that again. It won’t happen again,” he repeats the last part, his words clipped and robotic. He lays down and turns away, back to Sam, before turning out the light.

That’s it then. Their last moment before Sam fucking jumps into hell with Lucifer and those are Dean’s words, Dean’s tone, Dean’s face.

Sam is furious. His life, his entire life and his stupid story is ending here, is wrapping up, and it’s not heroic, it’s not sufficient, and his brother does not love him. At least, not the way Sam loves him back, always has, so vibrantly and passionate, stifled and left in the dark to burn and burn and burn. It’s sub-par, it’s weak, and he realizes it is entirely fitting. He shuts himself down, too, mirroring Dean. He stands up and goes outside, leans against the bricks next to their door and sobs his eyes out, biting his forearm until it bleeds to stifle the sounds. He moans like a dying man and punches his other fist into the bricks. His knuckles bleed, and he only feels a slight sting. He can only feel that sting, and nothing else. He zeroes in on it, cancels everything else out, and chides himself. He needs to be ready for tomorrow. He needs to put his game face on.

“You’re a sick fuck, you know that,” he says heartlessly, a piece of an old routine of his, his “cleanser” after jacking off hot and fast about his older brother doing things to him. He nods.

He has to save the world tomorrow. He needs to be there for Dean, in a purely fraternal way. He smiles how an inmate on death row smiles, reflecting on years and years in the same prison cell, and goes inside.

Dean is asleep. Sam hops into his own bed and lies awake until his hand stops throbbing.

—

_Now_

Sam laughs out loud. He can’t stop himself. His life has turned from a bad joke to a worse one, a perpetual shitfest that somehow gets worse and worse, hurts him worse and worse. He can never seem to empty himself all the way out, can never get rid of the ache and the grief. He’s made of patch-ups over patch-ups over patch-ups, impermanent pieces that peel away with each second.

He rests his head on his knees and sniffs, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. He closes his eyes. He thinks of his past. He thinks of Dean. He thinks of every tiny, insignificant moment they’ve shared, and the big ones; the punches to the face and the soul-eating confessions and the boss fights. He thinks of the crinkles around Dean’s eyes and the purse of Dean’s lips before he tells a shitty joke. He thinks of Dean’s calloused fingers on his skin, probing for injuries and only finding the skin-deep ones, thinks of Dean’s warmth when they rarely hugged or when Dean held him tightly as a kid, with no shame or abandon or disgust.

He thinks about all Dean is, all the conversations they’ve had, the life they shared.

Mostly, he thinks of the life they didn’t have. The conversations he was too weak to start. He thinks of the things he never said to Dean, the silences he let happen and the boxes he made around himself.

Sam thinks, that’s it. That’s the real tragedy. In fact, it’s the biggest fucking tragedy he’s ever heard.

Dimly he realizes he’s crying again. He feels twisted up with bitterness and sadness and a whole spectrum of indecipherable, ghostly emotions. He hates himself for being such a fool and so frail. So broken.

Sam thinks the worst thing that has happened on this earth, and below it, is that he never told Dean he loved him. He never said those words, or any like them, never confessed a single fucking word. It’s the biggest regret of his life and he will never get to make it right.

To make himself feel even worse, he imagines what could have been. He images Dean smiling and laughing and looping his finger’s with Sam’s. He imagines Dean’s lips, not angry, not fast. Slow, caring, loving, made only for Sam and not one night stand girls. He imagines Dean’s hands lazily trailing up and down his body, worshipping it, imagines Dean whispering “I love you” into Sam’s neck. He replays his deepest fantasies, not even sex just  _love_ , and a single sob racks its way out of his throat.

Dean’s gun is on his desk and Sam walks to it, flicks the safety off, cocks it, and pressed it to his throat. He puts his finger on the trigger. He shivers.

He pulls the trigger but yanks the gun at the same time. A bullet hole explodes in the wall above his shoulder. He sets the gun on the desk, shivers again.

He can’t do that. He can’t fail Dean like that, in that last way. For the first time in a long time he entertains the thought that Dean is out there somewhere. He resolves to get sober, but it feels empty. He wants to find Dean, whatever happened to him, and spill his fucking heart out, confess it all.

He climbs into Dean’s bed, smells Dean on the sheets, and closes his eyes.

He allows himself to dream. For tonight, he lets himself want, lets himself think.

But tomorrow, he hunts.


End file.
